In Good Company? Perception of Movement Synchrony of a Non-Anthropomorphic Robot

Abstract

Recent technological developments like cheap sensors and the decreasing costs of computational power have brought the possibility of robotic home companions within reach. In order to be accepted it is vital for these robots to be able to participate meaningfully in social interactions with their users and to make them feel comfortable during these interactions. In this study we investigated how people respond to a situation where a companion robot is watching its user. Specifically, we tested the effect of robotic behaviours that are synchronised with the actions of a human. We evaluated the effects of these behaviours on the robot’s likeability and perceived intelligence using an online video survey. The robot used was Care-O-bot3, a non-anthropomorphic robot with a limited range of expressive motions. We found that even minimal, positively synchronised movements during an object-oriented task were interpreted by participants as engagement and created a positive disposition towards the robot. However, even negatively synchronised movements of the robot led to more positive perceptions of the robot, as compared to a robot that does not move at all. The results emphasise a) the powerful role that robot movements in general can have on participants’ perception of the robot, and b) that synchronisation of body movements can be a powerful means to enhance the positive attitude towards a non-anthropomorphic robot.

Look! It's Moving! Is It Alive? How Movement Affects Humans’ Affinity Living and Non-Living Entities

“…Equally to Mori's hypotheses of the primacy of movement, Vidal [25] identifies movement rather than any specific detail of the appearance as the main channel for the dialogue between an entity and humans. This is experimentally supported by Lehmann et al [47], having people rating semantic pairs of traits in regard to a robot interacting with a human shown on a video screen. Their results illustrate that movement even if it is not socially engaging behaviour, facilitates the propensity of humans to ascribe intentions to agents (robotic objects) as activating the attribution of agency.…”

“…Video sequences longer than 4-5s would have been preferable, but the Qualtrics framework at the time of the study did not allow buffering or embedding of videos in a practicable way. Additionally, representations of zoomorphic or anthropomorphic robots (e.g., [47], [49]) have not been tested in the framework.…”

Can Real-Time, Adaptive Human–Robot Motor Coordination Improve Humans’ Overall Perception of a Robot?

“…Such mechanisms would help robots to become more socially accepted and increase empathy. Recent work in these fields has demonstrated such effects [42]- [44] and provide insights into how such co-ordination effects can be designed.…”

Reframing HRI Design Opportunities for Social Robots: Lessons Learnt from a Service Robotics Case Study Approach Using UX for HRI

“…This positive perception can persist even when the robot doesn't perform the tasks at its best. The findings show that, if the robot's behaviour can be interpreted as coherent and goal-directed, even if it does not conform to what would be expected of socially engaging behaviour, "it still facilitates the human propensity to ascribe intentions to agents" [82].…”

“…To explore the users/participants attitude towards the robot courier, a Godspeed questionnaire was used, which includes a Likert scale to quantify the engagement, acceptance, and affordance of the single users [82]. The survey was composed of 34 questions and distributed to 48 participants as reported in Figure 8.…”